


She Thought He Could Help

by Resistance



Series: Nashville Predators [4]
Category: Country Music RPF, Hockey RPF
Genre: Awkward, Crossover, F/M, Gen, M/M, Nashville Predators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resistance/pseuds/Resistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, someone gave me a prompt to write Shea and Mike and Carrie. I didn't. I wrote this instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Thought He Could Help

**Author's Note:**

> I have an obnoxious need to explain the background and setting before I get to the fic part, so feel free to skip to the dateline if you already know this stuff.

Prior to coming to Nashville, I listened to music if it was on, mostly as background noise in the rinks or in the gym. I wasn’t what you might call a music fanatic, though. Ryan has loved country music since he was born, or so he says. At the very least, he was into it before he got to Nashville. He had a chance to do a photo shoot at the Grand Ole Opry for USA Hockey Magazine that he would not stop talking about for months afterwards. It may have been the single greatest press event he had ever been to. The radio was always on in our house and he could sing along to almost anything. And would, loudly. I’d rather not think about which song in particular that he used to put on to sing to me, but needless to say I don’t listen to those songs anymore.

When Mike got to Nashville, he was very closed off. The more you get to know him, you realize that he’s not a very talkative guy anyway, but that wasn’t why he was so shut down. We discovered quickly that he had been playing his whole career with someone that he was going to suddenly have to learn to play without. We’ve had guys like that before, of course, but with Mike, you could just tell he didn’t feel safe anymore. It took a while for him to warm up to us and to believe that we would protect him just as much as he had. Of course a few phone calls from Ottawa’s favorite enforcer made those promises a little more firm. We quickly got used to him visiting and glaring at people for their perceived shortcomings in protecting Mike. 

Along with him, Mike also came with a wife, as so many of us have. As it happens, his wife was famous. The first time she walked into the family area, Ryan stepped on my foot. It wasn’t as if we didn’t know she was coming, he read Mike’s press just like I did after he was traded in. Truth be told, he probably had already read her Wiki page before that trade was a glimmer, he was like that about his country people. But nonetheless, he stepped on my foot. I don’t yelp, but if I did, I would have. Instead I just looked at him and shook my head. I toyed with the idea of letting Ryan be the one to go over and welcome her to the Predators family, knowing that he would get more than a little tongue-tied as he always did when he met those country people. But it was my job. It turns out, she’s as charming and gracious as her press makes her out to be. (Well, most of her press. Ryan did spend some time scoffing at articles about her feuding with another country music wife, though I don’t remember who it was.) And despite the fact that she often graced us with vegan cupcakes, she was a very welcome addition to our wives and girlfriends group.

Fast-forward to the summer when everything hit the fan. Rather than go back home at first, I spent the time holed up in my Nashville house with the boys, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my life. Not answering my phone was evidently a clear signal to most of my friends that I wanted them to actually drive to my house so I could not answer the doorbell too. I had four different friends threaten to call the police if I didn’t either answer the door or my phone. At that, I always let them see me long enough to know I didn’t drink myself into a coma or take a dive off my roof. I tried to make sure they didn’t stay long and thankfully, they all got the hint. Except one. 

_11:35am, July 2012, Nashville, TN._

Ding-dong!

I didn’t answer.

Knock, knock, knock. 

I didn’t answer that either.

“Shea Michael Weber, I know you’re in there, open this door right now.”

I silently cursed whoever put my middle name up on Wiki and I cursed her for having actually looked it up. And I cursed the fact that the last time a female voice had said that very line to me it had been my mother and I had been a sulky teenager. And I cursed the fact that if Ryan had been there, he would have known that. Because Ryan knows everything that makes me think of my mother, because he paid attention to that kind of thing. I didn’t want to think about that, but I’d run out of things to curse.

I opened the door, expecting to find Mike standing next to Carrie. Instead, the man I was facing was older and slightly goofier than Mike. And wore a cowboy hat. I didn’t doubt that Mike owned one, but he didn’t wear it by choice like this guy did. I stared at him, because for a split second, I wondered if he was really there. It was just a momentary flash in my brain, but the situation was so odd that I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making it all up somehow. I hadn’t had anything to drink that day, and it wasn’t even noon. The possibly did exist that I was drunk from the night before, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

“Nice to meet you.” He held his hand out. I remember looking at his hand for a moment like I didn’t know what to do with it. I’m usually very polite, it was just surprise. And the thought that Ryan would have been really excited that Carrie had stopped by with her cowboy friend.

I shook his hand, “Nice to meet you too. Come in.” I didn’t want to invite them in, but Carrie had that look on her face that they were coming in whether I wanted them to or not, so I had might as well invite them in. I glanced behind them just quickly enough to see Mike and Chris, in Mike’s car, pulling out of my driveway. I must have frowned.

“They have some things to do, they’re going to come by later for dinner.” Carrie informed me. The idea that they were planning to stay all the way from now to dinner wasn’t my idea of a good time, but it didn’t look like I was going to have a lot of choice in the matter. 

I turned towards the living room just in time to see Carrie crouching down in front of the double baby swing that dominated the living room. I had tried to put them in their own swings, but a few hysterical cries let me know that I would not be able to reuse any of the baby things I still had from when Brooks was that age. I had to go out and buy double versions of everything. Dug was lying in front of the swing, watching her critically. The fact that he was allowing Carrie near them told me everything I ever needed to know about her.

“They’re getting so big. Can I pick them up?” She looked at me hopefully. I nodded and stepped forward to help, but she waved me off and somehow managed to get them both out of their swings without taking them far enough away from each other to make them fuss. I was impressed. I’d had two months to perfect that art. Ryan still couldn’t do it. She cooed to both of them in turn. “They’re just beautiful. And they have so much hair.” Women always said that when they saw them. After they marveled over the fact that one twin had dark almost black hair and the other had blonde almost white hair. That they’re fraternal is the only explanation I ever felt a need to give for that. 

“Thank you.” I was never really sure what to say to that. ‘Thank you’ always felt like I should follow it up with ‘I made them myself’, which I didn’t completely. “I was just about to put them down for a nap. They—“

“Let me. I’ve done it plenty of times. Which way to their room?” She looked around, as if maybe we had road signs up on the walls.

I pointed to the stairs, “Left at the top, second door on the right.”

She gave me a smile and carried the boys up that way. I looked at the man she’d left behind with me. He looked extremely familiar but for the life of me, I couldn’t place him. Since he’d come with Carrie—and the most obvious clue of his hat—I had a pretty good idea he was a singer, too. I wished I could have come up with his last name without having to sneak off to do a quick Google search. Ryan would have known right away who he was.

“Can I get you something?” I asked him.

He thought about it, “Beer if you have it.”

“I can check. It’s not my drink of choice, but my-- I probably have something.” I gestured that he could sit in the living room while I went to the kitchen to see what Ryan had left in the fridge. And do a quick search on my phone. I groaned when I saw it. I should have been able to come up with that name, I’m pretty sure I’ve even met him before. I knew his music for sure. Ryan would have laughed at me if he knew I couldn’t come up with his name.

I brought him a bottle of beer and sat on the chair opposite the couch he had sat on. Small talk wasn’t my specialty. Lucky for me, that wasn’t why he was there.

“Carrie thought I might be able to help you.” 

I stared at him. “With… what?”

“Mike wanted to help you. But we both know Mike and he’s terrible with…. How do I put this? Talking out loud. So he told Carrie and she told me. I have a little experience with relationships going south in unique ways. I—“

“Thank you, but---“

“If I don’t try, she’ll couch me. Let me try?”

“Oh, you and she are…..” 

“Together. Yes, I’m straight, but I still think I can help.” He looked at me, expectantly. I think I was still staring at him. I didn’t say anything, so he took that as a cue to continue. “Will you let me try? Please?”

“Alright.” I heard myself agreeing before I could come up with a credible excuse to turn his offer down.

He smiled, “Okay, so I’ve had a few relationships along the road. If I had been gay, I probably woulda been dating Blake Shelton by now, which would probably be a lot easier. But since I’m not, all the people that thought I was, were very disappointed. Least of all Blake, ‘cause he’s also not gay. But that’s beside the point. I did date a woman a few years back, who I really liked. It turns out, while she was dating me, she was livin’ with a woman. Livin’ with in the one-bedroom-naked-time sense. Now, I know a lotta gay famous people have covers, but this wasn’t that. I thought I was datin’ her. So did her girlfriend. Then she decided to come out and write a book and tell me that way how sorry she was for how she treated me. Which was nice, in her mind, I’m sure. I thought my gaydar was pretty good, but I had no idea.”

I found myself wishing I had a drink to listen to that story. I remember once sitting and listening to Alexander tell me a story that was about twenty percent in English and eighty percent in Russian and that still made more sense to me than what I just heard. Or rather, why I just heard what I just heard. I had a feeling I was supposed to say something, but I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing. I think I nodded. 

“So… yeah, sometimes you just don’t know. But that doesn’t say anythin’ bad about you, just that sometimes you don’t know an’ you hafta get back on the horse and keep goin’.” He ran out of steam by the end of the sentence and punctuated it with a long drink from the beer bottle in his hand. “Okay, that was corny, but I’m tryin’ here. You want me to set you up with someone? I know this great guy that’s single. He even does that hockeyball stuff y’all do.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Thank you, but I—“

“He’s just a hockeyball wannabe, maybe you can give him some tips or somethin’. His name is Dierks---“

“I know him.”

He gave me a surprised look. “You do?”

“He used to play with Jordin and some of the guys. He’s been around our room. He’s a nice guy.”

Brad tried to cover his surprise with another drink and found his resolve, “So can I set you up?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Here’s the thing…. My husband left me about two weeks ago. I’m really not ready for that kind of thing. I appreciate the offer, but I’m not…. so quick to get back on the horse.” I really hoped that had come out as polite as it sounded in my head. I knew he was trying to be nice, but being set up on a date sounded like the singularly worst thing that could happen to me right now short of Zach Parise being traded to the Predators.

He frowned at me, “Whoa, y’know, I’m sorry. That was kinda dickish of me, wasn’t it?” I didn’t want to say yes, but that was the truth. I just gave him a little smile instead. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate what you were saying though. Thank you.”

“Really?”

“Mostly.”

“I’ll take that.” He offered his beer up as a toast before taking another drink.

I looked at the clock and wondered how long it would be before I could find a reason to ask them to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Brad Paisley dated Chely Wright in 2000. She came out in 2007.  
> Carrie Underwood married Mike Fisher in 2010.


End file.
